


raise your right finger

by bartonbones



Category: Outer Banks (TV)
Genre: Angst and Feels, COMPLETE disregard for what the original authors did, GRATUITOUS script-doctoring and making up my own canon, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Mentions of Cancer, Slight Canon Divergence, and probably failing, author once again trying to interject some characterization in to sarah and john b, hear me out: what if none of this was about ACTUALLY about boys, inspired by a mean girls song lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:27:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24485062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bartonbones/pseuds/bartonbones
Summary: So here's my right fingerTo how girls should behave'Cause sometimes what's meant to break youMakes you brave.Kiara doesn't buy the whole "push people away," thing, so earning her friendship back is going to cost Sarah Cameron a little more than a flimsy excuse and a blunt. Sarah Cameron just really, really misses her friend.OR: the Kiara and Sarah Cameron boat scene, but if the show actually gave Sarah any characterization beyond "rich girl with commitment issues."
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23





	raise your right finger

_We're supposed to all be ladies_  
_And be nurturing and care_  
_Is that really fair?_  
_Boys get to fight, we have to share_

_Here's the way that turns out_  
_We always understand_  
_How to slap someone down_  
_With our underhand_

_So here's my right finger_  
_To how girls should behave_  
_'Cause sometimes what's meant to break you_  
_Makes you brave_

Kiara’s got a big heart. 

  


It’s one of those things people say about you when they know you’re listening, the kind of thing that is obvious and pleasant and easy to say: Kiara is smart, funny, and she’s got a  _ big heart _ , which is really just an easy way to say  _ Kiara will care about you even if you don’t deserve it. _ Her mom thinks that, especially, when she says  _ I’m just worried they’re gunna hurt that big heart of yours _ , when she asks what to do about JJ’s bruises or John B’s despondency or Pope’s freak-outs that are really just textbook panic attacks without diagnosis. 

  


A lot of the time, it’s an easy way to say:  _ you can do whatever you want to this girl. She’ll forgive you. _

  


Except that last part isn’t true, Kiara makes sure it’s not. You don’t hang out with insensitive, ignorant boys and make yourself a doormat: you wouldn’t survive a week. Kiara’s big heart is surrounded by a necessary amount of tough skin, and contrary to her mother’s belief, she  _ only _ cares about people who deserve it.

  


Which means she mostly just cares about turtles, but also her boys, and her parents, and minorities, and the environment because every time she’s tried to care for anyone else it’s backfired. Which means Kiara and her big heart are currently in a special version of hell, surrounded by water and a crying Sarah Cameraon, who’s acting like it’s Kiara’s fault that things are weird. 

  


Not for the first time, she wants to shove the boys off of a cliff, but it doesn’t change the fact that after a few hours they both realize they’re here, really here for the long haul, and they might as well make the most of it. 

  


It feels even a little nice, to force her presence on to Sarah, after she so clearly didn’t want her at her birthday party, after Sarah forced her presence onto the Pougues. After she’s  _ clearly _ so comfortable forcing her high ass on Kiara, who had previously planned to try and get to morning without saying more than two words to each other.

  


So she’s asking, why Sarah did it all, didn’t invite her, ghosted her,  _ left _ her, until it comes boiling back down to the thing she’s been wanting to ask for months. 

  


“You were my best friend and then you ghosted me, and I don’t even know  _ why! _ ” she says, eyebrows furrowed, heart pounding. “What did I do?” 

  


Outwardly, Kiara knows she did nothing. Her parents say she did nothing, the boys say she did nothing except leave them, and when she talks about it she emphasizes her innocence. But the fact was that inwardly, Sarah was the first friend Kiara had made in years, the first  _ girl _ she’d ever been friends with, and she was so lost in the high of getting to talk about makeup and wear dresses without teasing and talk about  _ boys _ and kissing and not feel worried about being hit on, that she needed to know what she did wrong, which part of femininity and womanhood and friendship she misunderstood, to have fucked it up the only time it ever happened.

  


The boys gave her shit for leaving. She gave  _ herself _ shit, especially for not texting John B when his Dad left. But it wasn’t like she was just abandoning them for new friends or nicer restaurants or Figure Eight, she wasn’t trying to leave anything behind, she was just finally getting to be someone she never thought she’d get to be.

  


Someone who got more than three likes on instagram, someone who took pictures at the right angles, someone who watched shitty chick flicks and laughed at them, someone who could exist without the constant ribbing of boys.

  
Someone who could, even, exist without them.

  


And then she fucked it up.

  


“How— _ how  _ is that my fault?” 

  


She adds this part, voice trembling, because she doesn’t want Sarah to know how afraid she is that she has a comeback, a trump card, can point at some faux paus that Kiara didn’t know she was making and then Kiara will have no anger to cling to when it’s 2am and she wishes there was someone sleeping on the floor next to her again, laughing and using snapchat filters and lazily flinging their arms around her without worrying about her parents walking in or what it will mean tomorrow. 

  


“You  _ liked  _ me,” says Sarah, and Kiara pulls her head back, eyebrows furrowed. That’s nothing special, everyone  _ liked _ Sarah—even John B, even Pope, even  _ JJ _ , even though she was the reason that Kiara left them for a year, even though she was a Kook in the worst kind of way. 

  


There was something about Sarah that was really fucking easy to like, something about the way she could be stupid-funny and not just pretty, the way she always put her name on petitions around the school and flashed white-teeth smiles at everyone in the hallway. She was just...likeable, in a genuine way, which is why it was all the more surprising when she dropped you like you were nothing, like you were miles beneath her, like she was loved by everyone and she loved everyone back— _ except you _ . 

  


“That’s not special,” says Kiara, her voice low and hateful, “ _ Everyone _ likes you. Even when they shouldn’t.” 

  


Sarah makes a pained face, all drawn together and miserable. What Kiara says lands, because she has a big heart and thick skin and  _ sharp teeth _ , and Sarah Cameron is made of paper. It makes Kiara feel sorry, in an uncomfortable way, and she kind of wishes now that she hadn’t said it. 

  


Revenge has diminishing returns. It’s never as good as it is in your head.

  


“I know,” she says. Her voice is slow and shaking, honest. She tucks her hair behind her ear, the same way she used to do when the seniors flirted with her or when she was trying to get Kie’s parents to like her. Nervous. Vulnerable. “But—when people get...close to me, I get scared. I just—bail.” 

  


It’s hard not to judge her. It’s the same way the rest of the Pogues feel when there’s some problem that only comes around from having money that they have to pretend to feel sorry for—when her parents decided to send her to Kook academy, when the girls at Kook academy didn’t like her.

  


_ Well,  _ says John B, when she’s choking back tears, explaining what happened,  _ you chose to be her friend _ . _ Can’t trust a kook. Present company excluded. _

  


But Kie’s never been like that. Partly because if she was, she’d never get to acknowledge any of her problems, always have to preface them and downplay them just because her parents have money. So even though it’s tempting to say  _ at least people are close to you _ , Kiara can see the pain in Sarah’s voice so she swallows it down and just asks, “ _ Why? _ ”

  


Sarah shrugs, jagged. 

  


“I don’t know,” she says. “I just—I get scared. That they’ll, like, leave.” 

  


Kiara makes a face, so that Sarah knows that what she said was absolute lunacy, because what the  _ fuck _ ?

  


“Hold on, hold on,” says Kiara, laughing bitterly, holding out a finger, “ _ You’re _ the one who left me.” 

  


“I know,” says Sarah, her voice quiet. “I know, that’s the whole thing, if I leave you first then you can’t leave me, and maybe—you know, maybe if it’s meant to be, you’ll—because you didn’t text me, you know? You just—called the cops and you never asked if it was a mistake, or—”

  


“You didn’t text  _ me! _ ” says Kiara, suddenly furious. Her chest aches. Having all this brought up again—it feels  _ just _ as bad as it did the first time. “I was supposed to be your  _ best friend _ , do you know how  _ embarrassing _ it was for me, not to be invited—to have people asking where I  _ was _ ? You don’t just forget your best friend, Sarah!” 

  


“—you didn’t  _ ask! _ It was one party, maybe I just assumed you were coming, maybe I—”

  


“Oh, I’m sorry, exactly  _ how  _ long have you been thinking up excuses?” Kiara gets up. She might have a big heart, but her patience isn’t even a quarter of the size. She’s going to go to the cabin, and she’s going to shut her eyes, and she’s never going to speak to Sarah again, and then she’s going to kick John B’s ass, gold or no gold. “Go fuck yourself.” 

  


“Kie,  _ wait _ —” 

  


“I’m done waiting for you,” says Kiara, but then Sarah is grabbing her arm but wincing and stumbling back down to the deck. 

  


“ _ Fuck _ ,” she whispers, empathetically. “I’m sorry. Kiara, please let me explain, I  _ am _ sorry—” 

  


“You’re not, though,” says Kiara, “You’re still making excuses, acting like it’s  _ my _ fault for not reaching out after you literally, on purpose, intentionally didn’t invite me to your party, because you were scared I was going to leave you, even though I never gave any reason for you to believe I would—” 

  


“I’m  _ sorry _ ,” says Sarah again, holding her side. “I’m sorry. That was wrong, I really am sorry. And—” 

  


She stops. The air is quiet, the waves splashing against the side of the boat. It’d be so peaceful if it wasn’t for all of this, Kie thinks. 

  


“I miss you,” she says. It hits Kiara in the chest, and she narrows her now-stinging eyes, because how could Sarah miss her? Sarah could have her pick of friends. “ _ No one  _ in that school is as interesting as you were, Kiara.” 

  


Kiara sticks her jaw out. She crosses her arms. 

  


“I know that,” she says, her chest puffed. And she does, actually—because all things considered her self-esteem is still rather high. “I didn’t think being  _ interesting _ was a thing you actually cared about anymore.” 

  


“It is,” says Sarah. “John B coming in is like, the only thing that’s happened in the past year that I even care about.” 

  


“But you threw it all away,” says Kiara.  _ You threw me away _ . “You could have been friends with all of us, but—” 

  


Sarah’s breathing is heavy. It might be the weed, or the jellyfish bite. It could be a great number of things, but Kiara still  _ knows _ Sarah Cameron, knows this specific tension before she says something she might regret in the morning. It’s the same tension as when she first confessed that she kissed Topper, late at night in Kie’s bedroom, leaning over the edge of the bed. It crackles, but this time with more anxiety and less excitement. 

  


“Kiara,” she says. Her voice is deep, unshakable. It commands Kiara’s full attention, and she knows that the conversation has just now shifted, even if she doesn’t know exactly to what.

  


“...yes?” 

  
“I’m going to tell you something,” Sarah is turning, looking grim, her legs crossed and her hands outstretched in a conspiratorial way. She’s leaning against the rail of the boat, her body folded in on itself, her head straight up, looking directly at Kie. “And—and I’ve never told it to anyone before. And—so I need you to promise me you’re not going to tell anyone.” 

  


“What the fuck—?” 

  


“Promise me,” she says. She’s deathly serious, so Kiara sits, folding her legs next to Sarah, but still at a distance. “I’m serious, okay. Dad and I are the only ones who know.” 

  


“I promise,” she says. Sarah doesn’t say anything, just looks at her.After a beat, she puts out a pinky. Sarah doesn’t take it, maybe decided it would be too weird, but nod, and then looks straight ahead, so she’s not looking at Kiara at all, not even peripherally. 

  


“My mom didn’t die of cancer.” 

  


_ Well, fuck.  _

  


“I’m  _ sorry _ ?” says Kiara, because of  _ course _ Sarah’s mom died of cancer, she was 10 when it happened and it was all over, the talk of the island, when something could strike down even the richest, even the Figure Eights. She was even at the funeral, albeit in the back of the crowd. “Did you  _ kill _ her?” 

  


Kiara asks because she needs it to be a joke, because if it’s not she doesn’t know who the fuck she’s sharing a boat with.

  


“No, sorry—” Sarah laughs once, it’s not a pleasant thing to hear, and scrubs at her face with her palms. “Like, she did—the cancer is what killed her, it just—it didn’t have to.” 

  


Kiara is looking at Sarah while Sarah is looking away, trying to scan her face, look for the lie, look for the joke, how this is going to tie back in to being an excuse, back in to being Kiara’s fault that she wasn’t invited to the party. 

  


“What killed her?” she asks, when she doesn’t find any of that. 

  


Sarah presses her lips together, and then she’s playing with her nails, and then her bracelets, and her chest is rising and falling shakily, and she’s sniffing. 

  


“She, uh—uhm, she stopped taking the medication,” she says. “She just—refused treatment. For everything, even though—she was getting  _ better _ , actually, we were just talking about throwing a party when she was done with the chemo, and then she just—” 

  


She looks at Sarah suddenly. Even with just the lamp and the moonlight reflecting off the bay, Kiara can see that Sara’s eyes are glassy. 

  


“She chose to die, Kie.” 

  


“What?” says Kiara. She’s whispering it, and her own nose is stinging and she’s not even sure why—maybe her skin wasn’t as thick as she thought, maybe she’s just high, maybe it’s just late. “ _ Why? _ ” 

  


Sarah shrugs. 

  


“I don’t know,” she says. She’s quiet, for a moment, thinking, and then continues. “She always hated it, you know? She was a mainlander. She married dad before he had money. And then all of the sudden—it’s a whole debutant thing, and she’s just this Pastor’s daughter from North Carolina, and she doesn’t know what to do, I guess—and all her family back home don’t understand, or whatever, and—she hated it, and I—” 

  


She licks her lips, and swallows, and then suddenly she’s choking on it, and shaking her head and Kiara is an uncomfortable saltwater mix of sorry and filled with dread, because she hasn’t comforted Sarah in a long time, hasn’t  _ cried _ with someone in a long time, and she doesn’t know if she’s ready, if she wants to. 

  


“I wasn’t worth living for.” 

  


To Sarah’s credit, she knows they’re not there yet. She swallows down her own cries and shudders as she does so and pulls herself back together. She turns her head but her hands are in fists, arms wrapped around her middle, and Kiara tries not to imagine what that feels like, to watch your own mother die knowing that she was choosing it.

She gets angry with her mom when she goes to the _store_ without asking if Kiara wants to come. She can't imagine this.

  


“Fuck, Sarah,” says Kiara, slowly. “That’s—” 

  


“It’s fucked up,” she says. Sarah doesn’t swear as much as the rest of them, so when she does, she means it. Kiara can feel it in her chest. “I begged her to stay, Kie. I was ten and I had— _ pills _ in my hands and I was begging her to take them because Dad thought maybe she’d change her mind if I said it, and it wasn’t—it wasn’t enough.” 

  


“Your dad shouldn’t have made you do that,” says Kie, her mouth dry. It hurts to swallow, and suddenly she’s wrapping her arms around her own middle, feeling seasick. “You were really young.” 

  


Sarah shrugs. They’re closer together now, the rock of the boat having pushed them, and Kiara can feel it against her body. She wants to reach out all of the sudden, but stops herself short. 

  


“Yeah,” Sarah says, her voice hollow. “So...I push people away. Because I’m scared they won't choose me. Because—” 

  


“You want them to choose you,” asks Kiara, looking at her. Big fat tears dripping down her face and nose chapped and red, and Kiara understands, a little, now. She wasn't giving those excuses because she thought of them after the fact, when Kiara was mad, but because she thought of them _before_. Because she wanted to give Kiara enough of a chance to text her first, to call her out, to choose to work through it and stay, because her mom didn't. "And you don't think I did." 

  


“I know it’s not fair,” she says, her lips curled. “I know it’s shitty, and it’s not fair, and it’s  _ stupid _ but I just—just wanted you to text me back, to say that you still wanted to be my friend, to—to really  _ show _ that to me. Because I can’t go through that again, Kie, I can’t, I—” 

  


Sarah is crying in earnest now, sobs shaking her chest, face scrunched up and ugly, in a way very few people have seen her. Kiara might be one of the only ones, actually, besides her dad, and it’s an odd club to be in now, and Kiara has thick skin, sharp teeth, but a big heart, so she reaches out and wraps her arms around Sarah, tight. 

  


“It wasn’t your fault,” whispers Kiara, in to Sarah’s shoulder, after a moment. This makes Sarah sob harder, and at first Kiara’s confused, until she pulls away, her hands still on Kiara’s shoulders. 

  


“It wasn’t  _ yours _ ,” says Sarah. She’s shaking her head. “I do it but it’s shitty and I  _ know _ that now—I know that because you’re the first person I ever cared about losing.” 

  


And now Kiara’s chest is burning, and her eyes are stinging and she’s sniffling.  _ Fuck _ . Is she really going to do this? Really going to stand here and go against her own rules, forgive someone who doesn’t deserve it? Who did deliberate wrong, who didn’t care, who didn’t apologize until she was stuck on a boat with the person she hurt?

  


But  _ why _ doesn’t Sarah deserve it? She forgave John B for kissing her. She forgave JJ for every shitty, uneducated gross comment he’s ever made. And then they forgave her for leaving them, not even being there when they needed her the most. 

  


Why is it the world taught her that boys are to be coddled, and girls are to be ruthlessly crossed out of burn books, tossed in to the fire, laughed at, mocked, unforgiven and unreachable? Why is it that JJ can punch John B when he’s mad and then they’re fine the next day, and they have to talk it out, have to hold grudges and subtweet and be passive-aggressive until the day they die?

  


“I missed you so much,” she says, when she really means I missed so  _ much _ of you, so much of the me that I was when I was with you, the life that I had, the person you were, the people we could become together. “Sarah, I missed you too, okay?” 

  


And then they’re crying and hugging, and then they’re making their beds in the cabin and talking about how it feels like a sleepover, and Sarah says she hasn’t had a sleepover since they stopped talking, unless you count Wheezie, and Kiara is telling her how shitty it is to only be friends with boys—that they’re gross and get angry over stupid shit and they’re always getting in to fights, like constantly, and they’re carefully not talking about the rest, about the future, about how they need to decide what this changes, if they’re good again or not, until they’re both lying in their make-shift beds, and Kiara’s thinking and Sarah’s thinking and they’re playing chicken to see who is going to say it first. 

  


Kiara has a lot of pride, but Sarah has been a lot of quiet, so she starts. 

  


“Hey, Sarah?”

  


“Hey, Kiara.” 

  


Kiara licks her lips. 

  


“Promise me that you won’t bail on John B?” 

  


She’s asking for John B. She really is. She cares a lot about John B, and losing his dad has already made him so crazy, so sad, so  _ different _ that losing someone else would probably be the final straw. But she isn’t really asking, either, because she doesn’t need to know that Sarah won’t hurt John B—JJ and Pope have much more claim to that protective duty. She wants to know that Sarah has changed, that she’s learned. 

  


Promise me that you won’t bail on John B, she says, but means: Promise me that you won’t bail on  _ me _ . 

  


“He’s not just...some other guy.” 

  


_ I need to look out for myself _ .

  


“And he really, really likes you.” 

  


_ But I miss you _ .

  


Sarah’s quiet, for a moment, and then when she talks her nose is still stuffy from before. 

  


“I won’t,” she says.

Kiara’s heart is pounding outside of her chest. She’s thinking about what this means—a future where they’re friends again, a future where she has someone to spend the night, someone to take pictures with, to save the turtles with, to fake-date at too-fancy restaurants and take weekend trips to the mountains with, someone to talk to, to  _ relate _ to.

  


“ _ Promise _ me,” she says.

  


She can feel Sarah looking at her, even though she isn’t looking back.  _ Meaning  _ it, even though Kiara can’t see her. It makes it feel real, when it’s unobserved. 

  


“I promise.” 

  


She thinks for a moment, and decides that fuck all the revenge stories, fuck all the rumours and the gossip and the fake-apologies and fake tans. Sarah is being real. Kiara is being real. Underneath what everyone says about girls, besides all of the stories about catfights and bitchfests, there’s something real, pounding in their bones, something that thinks and loves and forgives. 

  


She nods. 

  


“Okay,” she says, quietly. “Okay. In that case...I’m sorry I called the cops.” 

  
And then they’re laughing again, and Sarah is saying you  _ bitch _ , but in a friendly way, in a way that makes a giggle bubble up from Kiara’s throat, and everything isn’t fine, everything isn’t perfect, but it’s enough, and her big heart is warm in her chest. 

**Author's Note:**

> i do NOT know if there's any reference to what actually happened to sarah's birth mother, but if there was i didn't find it, although to be fair i didn't search for it very hard bc i had already formulated and enjoyed this idea. but anyway, sorry if it's a little whack, i just think that the whole "pushing people away" thing is really tired and overdone, and maybe i just didn't get what the writers were trying to do, but to me it just didn't work with sarah cameron the way it was. i heard that mean girls song and it made me really emotional as someone who went through a really similar thing as kiara, so i wanted to kind of work with that and write something for them and try my hand at characters other than jj, lol. let me know if you think i succeeded and if there's any other scenes you didn't like...there's a lot to love about the show but man i wish i had some say in the characterization department lol. thanks for reading!! :)


End file.
